


The One to Fall

by MapleleafCameo



Series: Towards Ecstasy [2]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: AU, Fallen Angel, Love at First Sight, M/M, Wingfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-31
Updated: 2014-05-31
Packaged: 2018-01-27 19:08:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,443
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1719434
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MapleleafCameo/pseuds/MapleleafCameo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Thank you to johnsarmylady & mattsloved1 for checking it over:)<br/>Inspired by the music of Sarah McLachlan<br/>This takes place in no particular chronological order</p><p>Don’t own – never will:(</p>
    </blockquote>





	The One to Fall

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to johnsarmylady & mattsloved1 for checking it over:)  
> Inspired by the music of Sarah McLachlan  
> This takes place in no particular chronological order
> 
> Don’t own – never will:(

At the time it had seemed like basically a sound idea. The plausibility of success was high. After all, others had done it and survived.

 Lying on the ground with his face half in a puddle, bits of dirt scoring his skin and a warm liquid trickling down from his forehead made that idea seem foolish.

 Foolish and painful.

 Extremely painful.

 He groaned and tried to leverage himself up off of the ground but he had lost most of his strength. He couldn’t remember when he had felt so weak. Not in a millennia.

 Eyes closed, for an attempt to open them moments before had caused his vision to swim. Instead he continued to catalogue every bruise and scrape. Fortunately there did not seem to be anything broken. Even his wings felt intact, although the left felt wrenched.

 An uncomfortable sensation crawled across his skin, one he’d never really felt before. Small bumps were breaking out all over the surface and he was shivering.

  _Ah, cold. I am cold._

It was a different sensation from the cold of space, the cold of the life he’d left behind where the ennui was driving him mad.

A heavy sigh and a loss of consciousness, the weight of gravity, the world and sin pulled him, held him, tugged him to the ground. The bliss of oblivion didn’t stay with him long.

 There was a soft murmuring in his ear and warmth spread over his lower torso as something soft was lowered over his back and legs. Hands were checking various places on his body, also warm, firm and expert. The voice, exuded calmness, patience, something about the voice, something familiar, comforting, was repeating similar phrases, over and over. He concentrated with some difficulty, trying to make sense of the words. The voice spoke English. He knew English but it seemed to have been knocked out of that part of his head.

 “Can you hear me? Do you know your name?”

 A mouth, sore and battered, creaked open and a muffled and garbled sound was produced.

 “Shur…”

 He licked his lips and tried again.

 “Sh’loch…Sherlock.”

 “Can you tell me what happened?”

 To speak of his journey was impossible, something a frail human mind would not understand, could not comprehend. To translate what was experienced within his senses into simple human terms, it would come out all muddled. How was one to explain the cacophony of light and the flavour of sound? The wonder and brilliance of travelling across the interval of space, through the rage of stars to land here, in this particular puddle, in this godless human city on a insignificant island. All because of a desire to not feel bored and because…

 Because he was curious.

 “I’ve called for an ambulance. They should be here soon.”

 Panic swam through the miasma of his pain and discomfort.

 “No!”

 “You were badly injured. Were you mugged?”

 “No! No ambulance. Help me! Help me up!”

 The voice took on an edge of command, that even the upper hierarchies might have stopped to listen to or at least take notice.

 “Stay still. Try not to move. You are going to a hospital and you are getting checked out.”

Lifting his head off the ground, he squinted to see who had been speaking. An unremarkable person knelt at his side. He must have been uncomfortable, sitting there on the cold damp ground, but it didn’t seem to be bothering him. Sherlock, despite the pain, stretched his mind toward him.

 He felt it. The inability to translate what he saw in this man’s mind, the same way he was unable to translate the journey between the heavens. Hidden inside him, there were so many puzzles, so many contradictions, such brightness, such darkness. Anger and despair hovered on the surface, but the depth of sensitivity and joy of life were buried deep down, way down under the scars and hurt. This, this was what made his relinquishment so much sweeter.

 “Who are you?” he muttered.

 “My name is John. I’m a doctor and I’m here to help.”

 John

 Such a simple name. Such a complex man.

 Worth falling for.

 oOo

 

 John was fucking tired. So tired. The work was done for another day and he just wanted to get home, shove some food into his mouth and sleep for a week.

 The night was darker than it should have been. It was London, for god sake’s, and the lights from the streetlamps and shops should have illuminated everything around him, but there seemed to be a drain on the light. In the gloom of the night, he started to cross the street when a spectacular streak of lightening ignited the sky. It had multiple forks and crashed through the atmosphere in a fierce and glorious display.

 He paused, waiting for the inevitable boom and reverberation from the trailing thunder, but it never came. Instead the ground shook, ever so faintly, as if from an impact tremor or the negligent shrug of a sleeping giant. His eyes still held the afterimage and he blinked rapidly trying to clear the glowing trail from his sight. Once he had decreased it sufficiently, he continued to make his way home. He hadn’t gone far when he saw something lying on the pavement up ahead. A few more steps and he could make out a huddled shape upon the ground. A person. _Poor bugger, must have been mugged._ He palmed his phone, kept it at the ready to phone for an ambulance and cautiously knelt beside the fallen man.

 The man was naked and he appeared to be shivering. A cursory check and a gentle touch for a pulse. Breath filled the lungs of the form beside him and the beat of the heart was strong and sure.

 The jacket John was wearing was removed and draped over the still figure. As he moved the coat to cover him, there was an odd shift in the light in the space above the man’s back. He squinted and rubbed his eyes. For a moment he thought he saw wings, great, black wings, but with the undulation of stars woven in the feathers. The jacket wouldn’t go up further than the waist. He shrugged, believing he was more tired than he had originally thought.

 He swiftly dialled 999. Speaking to the answering voice, he gave his credentials and requested an ambulance.

 The attempt to awaken the man met with resistance at first. After a few minutes of groans and weird mumblings, his voice, although cracked and dry sounding, spoke in tones, which carried through the air and seemed to arrive in John’s chest. Even in pain there was something magical about the way he spoke. But it was when the man, opened his eyes, that John began to believe that perhaps the wings weren’t the imaginings of an exhausted mind, for like them the cosmos swirled in the depths of the crystal eyes and although it was dark on this street, he was able to see their colour clearly. Not sure what to make of this, he waited with the man, kept him talking, heard his name, Sherlock. When the ambulance came, he went with him to the hospital. He wondered when the stretcher was brought forward how wings could fit on it, but the paramedics were able to transfer him onto his back with no problems and he began to doubt once more.

 Hours later, not even thinking about going home to a lonely bedsit, he waited in the darkened room while Sherlock slumbered peacefully. He reached out and carefully lifted the pale hand to check the pulse again. Long fingers hung limply and he carefully replaced it on the bed.

 John looked at the face, at the ebony curls scattered on the pristine pillows, eyes roving under closed lids, dreaming of impossibilities, perhaps. In the light from the window, in the manmade gleam from the street, he could see the shadow of wings on the wall, stretched out impossibly, as if the bed was not solid and they reached down and swept along the floor, hidden and invisible, but there all the same. Looking carefully between the layers and molecules of space, not quite knowing how he did it, John could make out a singular dark feather, alone and adrift on the hospital floor. He bent down, picked it up. He stroked along the shaft and smoothed the bent and jumbled quill. The touch of the feather, the weight of its reality crashed though him and he yielded to its veracity.

 And with that touch, with that surrender, he knew that he had begun to fall.

 

 


End file.
